


Omega Wolf

by purplekitte



Category: Horus Heresy - Various Authors, Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gender Roles, Genderfuck, Multi, insert jokes about leman russ's name here, the town bicycle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-04
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2019-09-18 13:59:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16996338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplekitte/pseuds/purplekitte
Summary: They call him 'the Russ tribe's leman' for a reason.





	Omega Wolf

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nighthaunting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nighthaunting/gifts).



The wild-man’s visits to the Russ followed no pattern, but so much in nature was impossible to predict. He would appear, sit by their fires, drink their beer, sleep in the beds of whatever women and men invited him there.

Usually he brought food, gnawed on mammoth carcasses it took three other men to shift slung over his shoulder, but that was only appropriate for a guest-gift, and they gave back host-gifts of beads and woven cloth. Rarely did he speak, but he laughed often.

The women of the tribe he was closest to, and he could usually be found with his head pillowed in at least one soft bosom while she knit and he slept. The men of the tribe were less sure of him: too unmanly, too willing to submit to any who would have him, too comfortable with women’s secrets and their magics. A man who would enter the sewing room of women was no man at all, the most degraded of thralls whose sheer lowliness put such a creature far beneath either gender. He was no threat to a husband, as surely as a concubine or bed-slave was no threat to the position of a wife. Yet, he was as strong as a kraken, a brother to wolves, and when he took exception he always won his fights. Wise he was considered too, the wisdom of a mad prophet and that of the women of the tribe, a spá-wife or völva.

The women taught him their secrets, as they would teach a daughter of the tribe. It would be against the pride of men to listen, but he was no man. Skills, magics of craft and hearth to supplement the magic of the wild that came to him as naturally as breathing, but also stories. They taught him of Freyja, god of whores and magic, always the battle-prize, who must buy all she had with her body, as a woman must, but who had power and wealth because she grasped them, and owned her own household and half the tithe of the dead. Of Gullveig thrice-burnt, defiled and ravaged, who cursed fate and gained the power to destroy the world. Of Frigg who knows all fates, the Norns who spin and cut, Idunn the planter, Skadi the north wind.

Now King Thengir of the Russ was aware of the wild-man as he was of most things in his realm and had been since he first appeared among the people as a child who was sometimes a wolf cub. He’d had him before, as most of the tribe had at one time or another, but the jarl was a distant figure from the remote longhouses the wild-man preferred and he was not one of those who counted him as his leman in particular.

So the king visited Bulveye, one of his most promising young longboat captains.

‘You would speak to me, jarl?’

‘Not you, your leman.’

‘My leman?’ Bulveye raised an eyebrow, but summoned the wild man from his bed and absented himself respectfully.

The wild man was adorned only in rough garment a thrall would wear, not a householder, but he could grow his own fur. He cloaked himself to put others at ease, when he saw no need to remind them he could walk barefoot on the snow.

‘They say you are wise, and what king does not consult a völva before setting sail?’

The wild man only nodding, taking no offense at being called womanly, however high ranked the woman; this was not the first time he had been asked to act in such a capacity. ‘So they say.’

‘You know I have no children, not even daughters, and I am not a young man newly wed. By the laws of the Russ, I should adopt an heir that the tribe no be thrown into confusion should I die. There are many men I could choose: my longboat captains or stripling boys I could raise into the position. But none suit as well as I’d like. This one is his father’s only heir, that one is involved in half a dozen blood-feuds, this one is already resented for giving himself airs, and that one indecisive. Already my rival jarls plan how they will divide my land among themselves.’

The wild man watched him with the stillness of a mountain, having heard nothing he didn’t already know. ‘You did not ask me here to ask me to agree is Bulveye the best you have, though he is.’ He left enough question in his tone to indicate that while he knew that, he was genuinely curious where this _was_ leading.

‘Become the next king of the Russ, as my son by oath. Young men think only of might in battle. I am old enough to know that is necessary but not sufficient in a leader. If you care for these people, give them your strength and wisdom to save them from sword and starvation, to win them conquests and alliances. Your reputation is such as a it is, but you and you alone can win all challenges.’

The wild man considered for a long time, for he was not hasty and frivolous with decisions of importance. ‘I too have a mother and sisters of my own I am obligated to before being another man’s son. I am a wolf. I am not a man. I do not fight like a man or lead like a man. Yet, I do love your people, who have been good to me. I wish to repay the gifts that have been given to me generously. Take me to your wife’s bed and I will give you a child.’

The meaning of his was clear enough, to Thengir, and though this would normally be a deadly insult, one could hardly be offended when he had already admitted himself incapable of getting children of his own. If he would adopt this foundling as his heir, it would be no worse to raise the child of this man and his wife as his own, if he were the one failing to give his wife children.

But the wild-man, though the king knew him to be the leman of many of the women of the tribe, lay only at the foot of their bed that night. After they had finished, he leaned over Eir, Queen of the Russ, and put his hand over her womb and closed his eyes.

There, deep within him, was memory. It was memory of amniotic fluids and lights that blinked on and off, wire and tubes, and golden light. It was the identity ‘VI’, when normally such abstract concepts as numbers were difficult for him. He waded through those memories into even earlier ones, ones partially his and partially another’s. With the ease of memory, he learned to reach into the world of soul, grasp what was there, and bring it back. It was the easiest thing, this deep secret of women’s magic, something all that lived could do without even conscious thought.

The next spring, the queen of the Russ bore a son, and Thengir swore eternal friendship with the wild man for himself and his descendants. Mingan Thengirsson never lacked for the counsel of his godsfather, and the Russ prospered.

The wild man nudged, working around their society like water around a rock, like a shuttle drawing the weft of a tapestry through the warp. True to his words, the wolf was never a man to hold a man’s responsibilities or ways. The old men and women talked of him inspiring the young into foolishness; in their day there had been only the ways of the tribe and that which was unclean. The wild man was so strong he made men think they too could do a woman’s magic without becoming weak, or women believe they could be like the blacksmith’s widow who he encouraged by giving her a gift of iron ore as heavy as she was. That sort of man was possessed by daemons. That sort of woman ended up with an illegitimate child (from a man less careful about those sorts of things) and only her own family to bear the financial burden of it. Those who didn’t follow the traditions and were selfish would lead the whole tribe into starvation when things got bad, they would say.

But the tribe’s Leman was too strong to challenge. Who would even think of challenging him anymore, and for what position, for he held none? His was not a strength a man could believe he could defeat or a witch that she could trick; might as well challenge an iceberg to a duel with your longboat. Nature was far beyond men and would do as it would, sweep them under the waves with no care for their concerns. He was no man, after all, but a wolf.

When the Emperor first arrived on Fenris, He checked the great hall, but his son was not there. His son slept among the dogs, when he was with the aett at all.

‘Why aren’t you a king?’ the Emperor asked.

‘They have a king,’ Leman replied.

His son’s being a person of ill-repute was not what the Emperor had had in mind, nor how the man leaned into the hand of any who would caress him and call him their leman.

‘Don’t you have a proper name?’ the Emperor asked.

‘Yes,’ Leman replied, though most of the tribe would have been surprised by that response. ‘But it’s not made for humans to pronounce.’

The Emperor sighed, but figured his plans could be flexible enough to incorporate a legion of sexually liberated werewolves into them.


End file.
